Citrine and His Radio
by Winekita
Summary: One-shot. Crystal Gems AU based on the Tumblr Ask blog. Leo the Citrine gem repairs a radio that only turns on at seemingly random times. Perhaps it has something to do with the Moukaite gem in the center?


**_Happy V-Day/SAD, everyone~! In honor of this (rather dumb) holiday, here's our favorite characters as...CRYSTAL GEMS~!_**

 ** _Okay, before anyone says anything, this is NOT a crossover. This is more of an AU than anything else. If Steven or the real Crystal Gems were present in this story, then I would classify it as a crossover. However, it is merely our beloved Rick characters as gems themselves, still in New York and not in Beach City.  
_**

 ** _This whole idea actually belongs to Shelbye, aka PoorArtistGirl27 on DA. She had an 'Ask PJO Crystal Gems' blog on tumblr and I received permission from her to write about my favorite gem: Citrine. Who is that? Why, none other than Leo! Who the Hell else could my favorite be in any Percy Jackson universe? xD_**

 ** _I own nothing you recognize as canon in either universe.  
_**

* * *

 ** _*~Citrine and His Radio~*_**

"Percy, I keep telling you not to collect random things!" Nico, also known as Onyx, growled as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "And yet here you come with a human object in your hands. What even is that?"

Percy, the Aquamarine gem, shrugged. "I dunno. It looks cool."

Rachel, one of the only two humans that had actually made friends with the crystal gems currently residing just outside of New York, glanced up from her painting. In Percy's hands was an old radio, covered in rust with springs and gears sticking out of holes where buttons probably should be. It was a sad little thing.

"That's a radio," Rachel said. "But it doesn't look like it'll work, Percy."

"What do you mean?" Aquamarine shook the radio. "It played pretty music earlier!"

The radio stayed silent.

"Well it did," Percy whined, shaking the radio. "I don't know why it isn't playing now."

Suddenly, Citrine—a gem otherwise known as Leo—burst into the room. He was flashing his latest obsession, a bag full of ice cream, with a giant grin on his face. "Lookit, guys! These things are called Push-Ups! You push on the stick and it pops up so you can eat more!"

His eyes landed on Percy's new radio. They lit up and he squealed, "Oh! Percy, can I have that!? I love radios and that one looks like it needs some _Leo Love_!"

Percy blinked as Leo shoved the Push-Ups into his hands, prying the radio out of them at the same time. "Leo," he protested. "I found it first!"

"But I can totally fix it!" Leo grinned. "Then you can have it back, I promise!" He rubbed his cheek against the radio. "Look at it…It needs to be fixed up to even compare to the rest of the junk in your room!"

A tiny spark flew off of the radio and hit Leo, making his curly hair stand up. If possible, he grinned even wider, so much so that Rachel thought his face would split in two. "See? It agrees with me!"

Apparently that was the end of the conversation, because Leo ran through the house and into his room without another word.

Percy stared at the bag in his hands. "What just happened?"

Nico came over and stole a Push-Up. "You got tasked with putting the ice cream away."

* * *

Leo dramatically sighed, draping himself over his work table. "C'mon, baby, work with me here!"

He'd fixed up the radio's outside quickly enough, and had gotten all the wires and springs and gears replaced that needed to be. The broken antennae had been fixed. By exploring the innards of the radio, he'd discovered that the thing didn't run on tubes like the ancient radios this one was modeled after—everything it needed to run was hooked up to a normal Earth gem.

And boy, was that gem a _beauty_! It was a big Moukaite gem, sparkling with sunset colors. The gem itself was cut much like a diamond, which Leo thought was amazing, considering it was extremely hard to cut diamond shapes into gems that weren't diamonds.

Leo had tried everything to get this stupid radio to work. He'd fixed it, gave it offerings, told it what to play, poked the gem, even hit the outside with a hammer. Still nothing.

And then, as Leo walked through the main room of Rachel's house, the radio in his arms, he spotted Percy sitting at the counter, examining a burger. The radio suddenly turned on, the volume low at first. As the sound rose, Leo could hear a beautiful voice singing a tune so lovely he actually stopped in his tracks. The voice continued, and Leo closed his eyes, sighing.

Then, it stopped. Leo opened his eyes. Percy had left the room. Leo shook the radio. "Hey! Turn back on! How'd you do that?"

Leo set it on a side table and pulled up a chair. "Please turn back on," he whined.

It took hours, and Leo sat by the radio religiously until the darn thing turned back on. And when it had, Jason—Benitoite—had been walking through the main room, looking for his goggles. The radio turned on so suddenly, it made Leo jump.

"Hey, there you are," Leo exclaimed. "Why'd you turn on now?"

Jason came up behind Leo. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out why this darn thing is playing hard-to-get!" Leo rubbed the radio, which was still playing. "I've been trying to get it to play for four hours, and then suddenly it turns on!"

Jason put a finger to his chin. "That's really pretty music. It sounds too pretty to be Earth music, doesn't it?"

"I didn't notice," Leo admitted.

"Jason! What were your goggles doing in my room!?" The Rhodochrosite gem, a beautiful girl named Piper, stomped into the room, holding up Jason's visor goggles.

Jason rushed over to take them from her. "Sorry! I don't know how that keeps happening!"

Piper huffed, but seemed to be hiding a smile. "I bet you it was one of our resident pranksters. Whatever."

Jason kissed her, apologizing again.

Leo gagged. "Get a more private room!"

That was when he noticed the radio had turned off. "Wait, what? Why'd you turn off?"

It took a few more times of the radio turning on and off randomly before Leo flailed and yelled, "Work with me here! I'm trying to help!"

Jason and Piper left the room, shaking their heads in amusement at Leo's 'antics'.

* * *

Eventually, Leo figured something out: The radio was very picky about who it played for.

Mostly, he'd discovered that the radio really liked Percy. Every time that silly Aquamarine waltzed into the room, the radio turned on! When he tried to grab at it, Leo pushed him away, saying it wasn't totally fixed. There was a grand total of two times that the radio played for someone other than Percy: the first had been Jason before Piper entered the room, and the second had been Will, the other human the gems regularly hung out with. However, once Will had begun to slyly flirt with Nico in front of the others (at which point the Onyx gem would flush and hiss that he should not be so loud), the radio turned off.

The final time Leo heard it play for Percy, Annabeth (Grey Star Sapphire) showed up. When the two gems started holding hands and getting close to each other on the couch, the radio went silent.

Two weeks later, Leo still couldn't start it up on command, or even at all anymore. He tried hiding while bribing Percy or Jason to walk into the main room alone at separate occasions, but it kept up the silence. Rachel had been genuinely concerned and tried to get Leo out of the main room for more than a few minutes, but Citrine wouldn't budge. Jason and Piper also grew concerned; when Leo grew obsessed about something, it was really hard to break his concentration. Leo's human form grew rather disheveled, with tangled hair and a somehow-thin frame, and though gems don't require food, the others started to think _he_ might.

Leo talked to the radio nonstop. At first it was pleading for it to play, then it became random stories, and finally it ended up becoming recounts of his adventures and personal life on Earth with the other gems, Rachel, and Will.

Eventually, as he told his stories, Leo somehow reached the conclusion that the radio was jealous of Nico, Annabeth, and Piper, and he got very testy.

"Y'know," he spat one night while everyone else had retreated to their rooms. "I'm gettin' real annoyed at that! None of the other Kindergarten gems—or even the converted Homeworld gems and humans!—seem to notice me! If I'm alone, I'm instantly the annoying little Citrine that's socially awkward, and if I'm with any of my friends…it's the Jason and Percy Show…" His lower lip trembled in angry sadness. "And now _this_. You sit there and wait for all the stereotypical 'hot guys' to show up and then get all silent when you see they've already got someone on their arm. And yet…not _once_ have you played for me. I know I'm not Aquamarine or Benitoite or even a cool-looking human…" A tear ran down his cheek. "…but, y'know…at least I've paid attention to you. At least I fixed your wiring…At least I _talk_ to you."

He scrubbed the rare tear away and took the radio back to his room, placing it on his work desk. "What am I doing," he mumbled to himself. "Breaking down over a radio, that's what I'm doing. I'm losing it…"

He grabbed a small white sheet and placed it over the radio. He stood for a moment, watching the still, radio-shaped sheet on the table in sadness before sighing and flopping down on the ground.

Suddenly, he heard a tune. A sad little tune sung by a beautiful voice. Leo rushed to his feet and flung the sheet off the radio. The tune grew just a bit happier and Leo's face broke into a smile.

"Hey, there," he said. "You finally decided to play for me, huh?" His eyes filled with tears. "Well…thank you…that's all I wanted…" Leo started to sob. He hugged the radio and sank to the ground, crying silently as the radio played for him. For _him_.

The tune switched to a lullaby, one Leo hadn't heard in decades. He cried himself into unconsciousness, enjoying the sudden peace.

* * *

For a few more days, Leo talked to the radio—this time, telling it his bottled-up feelings while the radio played. Those feelings were things no other could know about—not even Jason and Piper, his two best friends in the universe. He told the radio of his insecurities, his feelings of inferiority to his friends, his inability to do many things not involving mechanics correctly, and of his awkwardness towards finding an eventual partner. It was his dream to be like Frank—the resident Heliotrope fusion of two gems, Red Jasper and Diopside—and one day fuse with another to create one harmonious gem. Maybe _then_ he wouldn't be so socially inadequate. Maybe _then_ he'd be able to do things correctly.

"Maybe then I wouldn't be the weird gem in the corner during missions," he finished one day.

Leo sighed. The music switched off and he glanced at the radio. "Not that you'd understand," he said sadly. "You're just a radio with an Earth gem inside. Not even a planted gem, I bet. Just a regular, old, Earth gem. Not exactly anyone's type around here." He chuckled, despite himself. "It'd be funny if you were one of us, though…sure would explain your behavior."

A laugh escaped his lips. "I bet you'd look all funky. Weird-looking and all that jazz, right? No wonder you're so jealous of the girls (and Nico) who have the greatest-looking guys." He flipped a switch on the front of the radio. "All the not-pretty girls set their standards real high, in my opinion."

And then, suddenly…

A flash blinded him. The radio's music—the voice—was no longer quiet and mechanical-sounding. It became real. Beyond that white light Leo could see the shape of the radio shifting, changing. The shape became that of a human female, and Leo's jaw hit the floor once the light died down and he saw the radio's newest form.

Sitting on his work table was a beautiful girl _just_ Leo's age—or so it seemed—with long, caramel-colored hair, pale skin, and almond-shaped eyes. The Moukaite gem sat above her heart. Leo's breath hitched and he found he couldn't take his eyes off her.

At least, he couldn't until she started throwing his own wrenches at his head. Her beautiful voice was dripping with venom as she screamed, "HOW DARE YOU!? You impudent little imp of a Citrine! I should crack your gem this instant for insulting me! I, _jealous_!? I, _not-pretty_!? _FUNKY AND WEIRD-LOOKING!?_ I SHALL HAVE YOUR HEAD!"

Leo held his right palm—on which resided his precious gem—to his chest, fearing the absolute worst. "Whoa! Whoa! Easy, please! Let's not be rash about this! I had _no idea_ you actually _were_ one of us! Why didn't you come out sooner?"

The girl blinked, as if her being in human form had suddenly dawned on her. "I…" She looked at her hands, which had instantly become stained from Leo's dirty wrenches. "I am…I am reformed? I had thought it was a glitch in the spell…"

"Spell?" Leo dared to raise his head a little higher. "Someone did that to you?"

"A very long time ago, yes," she said. "I had defected from the Homeworld centuries ago. As punishment, they trapped me in various things. Every time they had to make a new nursery, they changed my form to that of whatever was on that planet and made me watch its destruction…they said…"

"They said what?"

She shook her head, as if confused. "They said that I'd be freed by the gem that would eventually perfect-fuse with me. He would be my 'hero', so to speak."

Leo's mouth formed a perfect 'o' shape. "So that's why you kept playing for the heroic-looking gems—you were trying to get their attention so they could rescue. But why Will?"

"He is not a gem?"

"No, he's a human."

"Oh."

Leo scratched the back of his neck. "I'm sorry I said those things. I didn't really mean them."

She placed her hands on her knees. "Then I forgive you."

"So…perfect-fuse, huh?"

She scoffed and turned up her nose. "As if. Like I said, it was probably a glitch in the curse, since I've been trapped for so long in so many forms. None of the other bonds with gems seemed to have worked, even with that Aquamarine. I don't know why my enchantment broke with you."

Leo puffed out his cheeks. "Uh, maybe because we're totes compatible?"

"Dream on. You are the wimpiest, scrawniest, most annoying gem to ever come into my presence." She looked him over with a look of slight disinterest, which was quickly replaced with pity. "Though I am grateful for you setting me free. Also, I am… _sorry_ …I ignored you. Clearly that upset you and that is…not okay."

"Yeah, about those cry sessions I had…" He rubbed his neck self-consciously. "Could you maybe _not_ mention that to the others? I _do_ have a reputation to uphold."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Only if you don't tell the other gems about the requirements of setting me free."

"Deal. By the way, I didn't catch your name."

"You cannot tell? I'm Moukaite." She tapped the gem over her heart.

Leo chuckled. "No, no. I meant another name. Like, I'm Citrine, but I like to be called Leo. Or that Aquamarine likes to be called Percy, or Onyx prefers Nico. It's just how we roll here on Earth."

"Individual names?" she asked. "How do you keep track?"

"Pretty easily. No one will expect you to get everyone's names right off the bat, anyway, so relax. Besides Moukaite, what pretty name would you like to go by?"

She pondered for a second. Leo noted how extremely cute she was when she thought about stuff. He really hoped this wasn't a glitch in her trap spell. He wanted _this_ to be the gem he would eventually perfect-fuse with.

Oh, she'd said something. "Sorry, I didn't catch that," he confessed. "What was that?"

"I said…call me Calypso."

Leo grinned and stuck out his hand. "Well then, _Calypso_. How's about we get everyone out of their rooms and introduce you?"

When she grabbed his hand and hopped off his work desk, Leo felt sparks fly inside of him. "Are you okay?" Calypso asked when he froze up. She removed her hand.

Leo felt the sparks disappear. He pouted. "Sorry. It's…It's nothing. Let's go."

As they exited Leo's room, Leo couldn't help but smile. He'd heard Rachel and Will discuss that 'love at first sight' thing before, and he hadn't really understood the concept. But now…Now he knew. He decided the first thing he'd do would be to ask Frank how his fused gems had felt the first time they'd met, just to make sure he wasn't being stupid—which wasn't entirely impossible for him.

 _If I could eventually make her sing for me over those hero types,_ he thought, _then I'll definitely get her on my side. Maybe one day she'll see that we_ are _compatable…_

* * *

 _ **A/N: Phew...that took way too long to write. I'd started it in early December and really should have finished it long before this. But it's finished!  
**_

 _ **The AU of Percy Jackson and the Crystal Gems can be found here:**_

 ** _ask-pjocrystalgems . tumblr . com_**

 _ **I would like to note that her 'ask' is no longer open (sad panda) but she's still got the blog up for everyone to see :)**_

 _ **This was the entire post that I had to go off of:**_

 _ **"**_ Leo- She was trapped in a radio actually that Percy found washed up on the beach. I repaired it as much as I could but couldn't get it to connect to any normal human radio frequency or for it to turn on whenever I wanted it too. It would just randomly flip on and I would hear this wonderful singing. I would wait a long time for it to come on and off, it would only appear that it would flip on when certain people would walk by. Strangely it was mainly Percy until Annabeth showed up. Then it remained quiet for a long time. I kept talking to it though and eventually it would sing for me too. One day I turned it on and there was a bright light and all of a sudden - BAM! Beautiful gem is sitting on my work station and is trying to whack me with my own wrenches!

Calypso- I did say I was sorry. _ **"**_

 _ **Hope I did them justice, Shelbye~!**_


End file.
